{"id":27831,"date":"2018-02-02T01:12:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T01:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27831"},"modified":"2018-02-02T01:12:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T01:12:57","slug":"not-politician-sure-thing-pal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27831","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I am not a politician&#8217;: Sure thing, pal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I always snicker under my breath, sometimes out loud, when I hear politicians say, &#8220;I am not a politician.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A Texas Panhandle candidate for the Texas Legislature has made such a declaration. He is Richard Beyea, a Republican running for the Texas House District 88 seat now held by fellow Republican Ken King of Canadian.<\/p>\n<p>Why the snicker?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the thing. Every dictionary definition of the word &#8220;politician&#8221; I have seen defines the word as someone who seeks political office or is &#8220;active&#8221; in politics. Thus, Beyea &#8212; who I do not know &#8212; becomes what he says he isn&#8217;t. He&#8217;s a politician.<\/p>\n<p>His website touts his business experience and how he has been a conservative &#8220;my entire life.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Let me offer this bit of perspective: John Smithee is a lawyer who also serves in the Texas House; so is Rep. Four Price; Kel Seliger ran a steel company before he ran for the Texas Senate. Pete Laney was a cotton farmer before he ran for the Texas House.<\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump was a hotel magnate before he ran for president; Barack Obama was a law professor before he ran for his first political office; George W. Bush was a big-league baseball team owner before he ran for Texas governor.<\/p>\n<p>On and on it goes. Damn near every single politician who entered politics for the first time can make precisely the claim that Richard Beyea is making.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe this so-called &#8220;non-politician&#8221; ought to re-calibrate his message. He&#8217;s a politician now, by golly.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I always snicker under my breath, sometimes out loud, when I hear politicians say, &#8220;I am not a politician.&#8221; A Texas Panhandle candidate for the Texas Legislature has made such a declaration. He is Richard Beyea, a Republican running for the Texas House District 88 seat now held by fellow Republican Ken King of Canadian. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=27831\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;I am not a politician&#8217;: Sure thing, pal<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[7490,4653],"class_list":["post-27831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","tag-2018-election","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27832,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27831\/revisions\/27832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}